This blog publishes market news relating to the companies listed in Bursa Malaysia, as well as business news in general. You can search and find all the past market and business news by searching within this Blog.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Markets take a breather, KLCI dn 4 pts

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 31): Key regional markets including Bursa Malaysia took a breather on Monday, as investors used the excuse of the surge in the US dollar against the yen to take'' profit.

The markets had rallied last week after European officials hammered out a deal to rescue Greece. As for the FBM KLCI, it is up 114.3 points from Oct 3's 1,367.52 to end 1,481.82 last Friday. For last week, the KLCI was up 30.9 pts or 2.19%.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 4.04 points or 0.27% to 1,477.78. Turnover was 637.07 million shares valued at RM526.29 million. There were 261 gainers, 334 losers and 263 stocks unchanged.

Reuters reported Asian shares fell and precious metals slipped on Monday as the dollar spiked to a three-month high against the yen following Japan's intervention, prompting investors to book profits after last week's rally.

The dollar rose more than 4 percent against the yen to above 79 yen, hours after briefly falling to a record low of 75.31 yen since World War II. The dollar index as measured against six major currencies rose 1.3 percent.

US light crude oil fell 90 cents to US$92.42, crude palm oil third month futures RM31 to RM2,940 while the ringgit weakened against the US dollar to 3.0750 from the previous close of RM3.0697.

At Bursa, among the heavyweights, Tenaga fell 11 sen to RM5.75 after posting losses in the fourth quarter while RHB Cap gave up 11 sen also to RM7.56. As for GENTING BHD [], investors took profit after the strong run-up in the share price.

Nestle was the top loser, down 60 sen to RM49.80, Petronas Dagangan 14 sen RM16.18 and IJM 13 sen to RM5.70.

Hard disk drive manufacturer JCY rose four sen to 61 sen with 40.77 million shares as it was expected to benefit as its competitors were affected by the severe flooding in Thailand. JCY-CD rose two sen to 8.5 sen.

Loss-making Zelan added 2.5 sen to 38 sen on news that it has received a letter of intent from Mudajaya Corporation Bhd to undertake civil works valued at RM300 million for a power plant expansion in Johor.

Among the gainers were Choo Bee, up 33 sen to RM1.75, DiGi 32 sen to RM31.82 while F&N rose 24 sen to RM17.02. Supermax extended its gains on the positive outlook for the glove maker, with the shares up 21 sen to RM3.77 while Latexx rose 12 sen to RM1.88 and the warrants 13 sen to RM1.44.